glasgow - edinburgh itinerary

hello, i will be flying into glasgow on wednesday night, and am attempting to finalize my itinerary. we´ll only be in glasgow for 1 night, then we´ll leave around noon the next day, then we´re driving up to ft. william so we can hike ben nevis the following day (the 26th). i need some good recs for a couple towns to overnight in after ben nevis (we need to be in edinburgh on the 29th tho, around mid-afternoon, so we dont settle in too late). obviously we can´t go too far, but would like to stay one night on the west coast (maybe oban?), then one night on the east coast (i dont even think we can make it up to the highlands). regarding food, i love all things seafood, and am hoping to have one nice dinner whilst on the road (the more offbeat, the better, as well as excellent fish & chips, some vegetarian stuff too cuz my friend doesnt eat meat). any info is greatly appreciated...thanks!

Oban is back in the direction of Glasgow from Fort William. If you want to go to Oban, I would recommend you base yourself in Oban and explore the isle of mull. A great day trip is to take the bus tour to Iona and Staffa, two very special places. More details through the link, the bus driver I had was exceedingly informative. The tour is inclusive of the ferries so it is much easier and interesting than doing it yourself.

I would also recommend the bar part of the waterfront restaurant for cheap food.

There are plenty of other things to do in the area, as I don't know what you're interested in its hard to recommend something. I'm not sure what you mean about offbeat foodwise, unless you mean taking the usual hunt to find some deep fried mars bar. You're best off doing that in places where there are plenty of tourists such as Edinburgh.

Fort William is the foot of the highlands, so you could easily get to the highlands. One day you could go up to Inverness and explore places on the way, I am fond of Glen Affric. You could stay in Inverness of if you don't mind going further go round to Aviemore. Next day explore Aviemore or go down further and spend a day in Pitlochary/Loch Tay/Aberfeldy/Dunkeld area - take your pick on what interests you. Its less than a couple of hours from there down to edinburgh the next day.

Or if you're a walking kind of person, go straight to aviemore (maybe 3-4 hours of driving), explore the caingorms, then go down to Dunkeld/Loch Tay etc the next day.

If you wanted a long detour back to Edinburgh, then turn of the motorway to go to St.Andrews, stop here quickly if you wish, see ruined Cathedral, beaches, have some ice cream - irn bru if you wish, then go round to the East Neuk area, Crail, Anstruther etc. You can queque up along with everybody else in Anstruther for Fish and Chips (it is good Fish and Chips, but I can't be bothered with quequeing for ages personally).

Basically check out what interests you on the Fort William/Inverness/A9/M90/Edinburgh loop or base yourself in Oban/Isle of Mull.

thanks so much for your info orchidalbion; we have changed our itinerary now and are dropping the car back in glasgow and just taking the train to edinburgh instead to give us more time in the highlands. if you can recommend a nice quaint somewhere by inverness, but not too far away, please let me know...thanks!

sorry I don't know the inverness area but search on here, people have made recommendations for the highlands in the past though beware the highlands covers a huge area, there's a recommendation here for the anderson